CIRP Annals - Manufacturing Technology 60 (2011) 347350

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CIRP Annals - Manufacturing Technology

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Automatic search for wheel position in ute grinding of cutting tools

B. Karpuschewski (1)a,*, K. Jandecka b, D. Mourek a
a
Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Quality Management, University of Magdeburg, Germany
b
Department of Machining Technology, University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, Czech Republic

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The prole of helical utes has a great inuence on properties of cutting tools. This paper presents an
Grinding
automatic method of searching for a wheel position in ute grinding for a given shape of the helical ute
Cutting tool
and grinding wheel prole. The algorithm is based on the main loop and two subroutines. The rst
Flute prole
algorithm is dedicated to the simulation of the ute prole by splitting the grinding wheel into many thin
disks. The second algorithm represents the numerical evaluation of the reached prole that results from
previous grinding simulation. Finally, the experimental evaluation using particle swarm optimization is
presented and obtained results discussed.
2011 CIRP.

1. Introduction In the following, a new method of searching for wheel

Grinding of the helical utes represents one of the basic
operations during manufacturing of solid rotary cutting tools. The
shape of the resulting helical surfaces has an inuence on plenty of
properties of the nished cutting tool because the helical ute is
one of the geometrical entities that dene the cutting edge, rake
angle, etc. Furthermore, the utes of any cutting tool affect the
stability and the chip removal.
During manufacturing of utes the grinding wheel moves along
a helical toolpath. The shape of the removed material from the
blank corresponds to the shape of the envelope surface that results
from the relative motion between the grinding wheel and
workpiece. The main problem of this grinding operation is the
achievement of the desired ute prole because this operation is
characterized by complex spatial contact between the blank and
grinding wheel.
Currently, one of two methods can be used for obtaining the
desired prole of the helical ute. These two methods differ in their
inputs and outputs. The evaluation of the cross-section of the
helical ute from a given prole, position of the grinding wheel,
and the pitch of helix is called the solution of the direct problem.
The determination of the necessary prole of the grinding wheel
from its given position, desired cross-section of the helical ute
and the pitch of helix represent the solution of the inverse problem.
An analytical solution of the direct and inverse problem has been
described by Ehmann and De Vries [1], Sheth and Malkin [2], and
Kang et al. [3]. The direct problem is often solved in design of end
mills and some drills that can be manufactured with grinding
wheels of simple proles (e.g. 1A1, 1V1, etc.). The inverse problem
is solved during design of some more sophisticated drills, where a
precise shape of the cutting edge is needed. The proling of
grinding wheels to the computed shape can be realized directly on
the tool grinding machine or on a separate stand-alone device.
* Corresponding author.
positioning parameters in ute grinding is presented as illustrated
in Fig. 1. The given shape of the helical ute, the prole of one or
more grinding wheels and the intervals of search space are used for
optimization of parameter combinations that allow the grinding of
helical utes with minimal deviation. The automatic search
enables to analyse the possible geometrical parameter combina-
tions. Due to this fact, in some situations the grinding wheel
proling operation can be skipped. In other cases, the proposed
algorithm can help in the selection of grinding wheel that can be
proled with minimal material removal [4].
2. Algorithm description
The presented search algorithm for good combinations of
positioning parameters of the grinding wheel can be divided into
three parts. The main part of the algorithm is represented by a
main loop that is based on some of the metaheuristics. In this main
loop, the sections of the helical utes for given combinations of
positioning parameters are simulated. Based on the shape of the
simulated proles, the combinations of parameters are consecu-
tively evaluated.
2.1. Direct simulation of helical ute prole
For the simulation of the ute prole, the idea of split of the
grinding wheel into innitesimal thin discs has been used. The
diverse methods for the determination of ute prole using
grinding wheel subdivision has been described by Kaldor et al. [5],
Ko [6], and Puig et al. [7]. A similar discretization of the grinding
wheel and tool path has been used in this paper.
The ute prole is computed in the plane, which is parallel to
the front face of the workpiece and the distance from the
workpiece frame origin OW is given by parameter d. The computing
of section points is realized in the coordinate frame of the grinding
wheel FT, but the coordinates of points of the resulting section are
expected in the coordinate frame of the workpiece FW. Therefore,

0007-8506/$ see front matter 2011 CIRP.

doi:10.1016/j.cirp.2011.03.113
[()TD$FIG]
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B. Karpuschewski et al. / CIRP Annals - Manufacturing Technology 60 (2011) 347350
Fig. 1. Comparison of traditional and proposed method.
the coordinate transformations between both frames have been
introduced. The components of every vector u in the coordinate
frame of the workpiece FW can be transformed into the frame of the
grinding wheel FT by matrix multiplication as shown in Eq. (1).
uT uW  T T ! W
The elements of the transformation matrix T in (1) depend on the
current position of the grinding wheel that is dened by its
toolpath and described by three translational parameters x, y, z and
two angular parameters w and c as shown in Fig. 2.
The principle of the simulation is based on the computation of
the intersection points between all circles on the grinding wheel
surface and the plane of ute prole for all given positions of the
grinding wheel, as shown in Fig. 3. These intersection points can be
found as intersection points between circle and intersection line of
the plane of the analysed circle and plane of the ute prole. The
intersection line of both planes is dened by its direction vector v
that can be computed as a cross product of normal vectors of both
planes n1 and n2. Apart from the direction vector, for the
positioning of the intersection line it is necessary to nd a point
that is common for both planes. The coordinates of such a point can
be calculated by solving the system of linear equations of both
planes. The coordinates of intersection points in the plane of the
analysed circle can be obtained as the solution of a quadratic
equation of the circle with substituted equation of the intersection
line. The calculated coordinates must be transformed from the
plane of the circle into the plane of the ute prole.
2.2. Evaluation of simulated ute prole
The simulation described above gives information about the
shape of the helical ute section as a cloud of points in a plane. In
the algorithm for searching of a good combination of grinding
wheel positioning parameters, the numerical evaluation of
[()TD$FIG]
Fig. 2. Positioning parameters of the grinding wheel.
[()TD$FIG]
(1) Fig. 3. Principe of the applied simulation of ute grinding.
deviations between the simulated section and desired ute prole
is required. The split of the workpiece section in parallel stripes,
which is inspired by dexel spatial volume decomposition [8,9], and
following analysis has been used as algorithm for evaluation of the
simulated prole.
In this algorithm, the workpiece is divided in parallel stripes
with constant width that is given by parameter dW. Every stripe is
bisected by a vector of known length, which can vary in the interval
between zero and the length that is equal to the contour of the
workpiece blank as shown in Fig. 4. At the start of the evaluation,
the length of every vector corresponds to the contour of the blank.
During the processing of the cloud of points, the length of each
vector is trimmed to the contour of the simulated prole. From the
xW coordinate of each point of the simulated prole it is possible to
compute the index of the associated vector that can be shortened
to the length, which depends on the yW coordinate of the analysed
point. If the analysed vector is longer than the yW coordinate of
analysed point, then this vector is shortened to the adequate
length, as shown in Fig. 5. In most cases, the simulated prole
cannot be tted exactly to the desired ute prole. Because the
slight undercut of the desired prole does not represent a major
problem, the maximal allowed negative deviation ed has been
introduced. The value of the t quality Fi for each trimmed vector
can be calculated using Eq. (2)
DlR  Dli ed  Dli
Fi or Fi (2)
DlR ed
where DlR is the maximal possible length of the vector dened by
the diameter of the blank DR and Dli is the actual length of the
trimmed vector.
[()TD$FIG]
Fig. 4. Evaluation of the ute prole.
[()TD$FIG] B. Karpuschewski et al. / CIRP Annals - Manufacturing Technology 60 (2011) 347350
Fig. 5. Principe of the vector evaluation.
If all trimmed vectors satisfy the condition of the allowed
negative tolerance and the workpiece is not damaged outside of
the given ute prole, then the deviation between simulated and
desired ute prole can be evaluated as a sum of partial values of
all vectors. In the case of non-satisfactory conditions, the simulated
prole is excluded from the evaluation.
2.3. Searching algorithm
The standard particle swarm algorithm (PSO) [10] has been
used to search the optimal combination of geometrical parameters.
According to the situation shown in Fig. 2, the search space is four-
dimensional, given by parameters x, y, and by angles w and c. The
algorithm works with a population, which represents the
candidate solutions that are combinations of the four parameters
listed above. Each candidate solution is represented by a particle
that moves in the search space.
At the start of the algorithm, the particles are generated
randomly inside of the search space. The location of each particle is
evaluated. The movement of particles between two iterations is
described by two equations that update the velocity vi (3) and the
position xi (4) of each particle.
v0i w  vi c1  r1  pi  xi c2  r2  pg  xi
x0i xi v0i
where the parameter w represents the inertia factor of the previous
velocity; r1 and r2 are random numbers in the range [0,1]; pi and pg
are the best found locations of the particle and the whole
population; c1 and c2 represent the cognitive and social coefcient.
3. Experimental verication
The functionality of the algorithm has been veried to search
the geometrical parameters for grinding the helical ute of a
twisted drill with 12 mm diameter and a helix angle of 308. The
proled grinding wheel has been selected as shown in Fig. 6. The
prole of the grinding wheel consists of three tangent circular arcs.
[()TD$FIG]
Fig. 6. Prole of the grinding wheel used for the experimental verication.
349
Table 1
Boundaries of search space for geometrical parameters.
w [8] c [8] x [mm] y [mm]
Minimum 20.000 30.500 0.000 60.000
Maximum 10.000 36.500 10.000 66.000
Goal 0.000 31.000 5.000 61.850
The measurement of the quality of the achieved solutions
without the information about an optimal solution gives only
relative numbers. To solve this problem, the helical ute prole has
been created with known geometrical parameters. This makes it
possible to evaluate the deviation from the optimal solution. The
intervals of the geometrical parameters that dene the searching
space and the parameters for manufacturing of the given ute
prole are listed in Table 1.
The PSO is a stochastic algorithm, therefore it is difcult to
reproduce the results. Another disadvantage of every metaheur-
istics is the fact that the best found solution is not necessary the
optimum. According to this, the testing procedure has been
repeated 10 times to obtain the arithmetic mean curve that
describes the behaviour of the searching algorithm. For the tests
two population sizes 25 and 50 have been selected. The search has
been stopped after 3000 iterations, and the results of these
simulations are shown in Fig. 7.
The simulations with both population sizes show slow but
relatively reliable convergence. The higher number of particles has
a positive inuence on the speed of convergence in early iterations
but increases signicantly the total time needed for the simulation.
To improve the efciency of the search in later iterations, several
modications of the prole evaluation and the PSO algorithm have
been performed.
The resolution of the discrete model for the evaluation of the
simulated prole can be signicantly improved with the utilization
of more than one vector eld [9]. These vectors are oriented
horizontally from the side up to minimum of ute prole EP as
shown in Fig. 8. The total value that corresponds to the given
[()TD$FIG]
(3)
(4)
Fig. 7. Results of the original and the modied algorithm.
[()TD$FIG]
Fig. 8. Modication of the evaluation algorithm with additional vector elds.
[()TD$FIG]
350 B. Karpuschewski et al. / CIRP Annals - Manufacturing Technology 60 (2011) 347350
Fig. 9. Selected steps of the search for geometrical parameters.
combination of geometrical parameters can be calculated as the
sum of the partial values in all vector elds.
The second improvement to the proposed algorithm is the
introduction of the mutation operator in the PSO algorithm. The
mutation operator should improve the problem with the
premature convergence by moving of particles out from local
extremes [11]. The mutation is realized in the following manner.
After reach of prescribed number of iterations, the selected
particles are positioned randomly in the search space. The
selection of particles is given by probability of mutation Pm. To
avoid the loss of best found solution, the particle with best value is
never mutated. The results of the improved search algorithm are
shown in Fig. 7.
The higher resolution of the improved prole evaluation model
has signicantly enhanced the convergence of the PSO algorithm,
especially in later iteration steps. Due to this fact, the modied
model allows to use a smaller population with good results. The
smaller population affects positively the time that is necessary for
the search. However, the population size cannot be reduced too
much. In our experiments, the minimal size of the population is
about 25 particles. Smaller populations led to convergence
problems.
The fast progress in the search is achieved mainly in the rst
iteration steps. In the later, the greater changes of parameter
combinations are done after mutation, which helps to overcome
the trapping of search algorithm in local maxima. For better
understanding of whole optimization process, the selected steps
from the search for positioning parameters are shown in Fig. 9.
4. Conclusion
Through particle swarm optimization, the search for geometrical
parameters of the helical ute grinding process has been investi-
gated. The results show the potential of PSO in solving of these
complex nonlinear problems. However, for fast and stable
convergence of the search algorithm, the precise evaluation model
of the helical ute is necessary. The main advantage of the proposed
algorithm consists in reduction of material removal in the grinding
wheel proling operation due to simulation based recommendation
of suitable grinding wheel geometries out of given stock. The
resource efciency remains one of the main advantages of the
proposed solution over classic systems. For the practical application
it is important that the developed solution can be used for searching
the parameter combination for any prole of a grinding wheel. Due
to intuitive work directly related to the ute prole curve, the
proposed system is characterized by a steep learning curve.
Conventional software in the control of commercial tool grinding
machines does not offer this functionality.
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